1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic camera and an image processing apparatus having a face recognizing function for a person and so forth.
2. Description of the Related Art
As described, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. Hei 6-259534, a technique of extracting characterizing points of a face of a person from a shooting image and recognizing the face based on a match rate of face recognizing data of a person to be recognized and the characterizing points has been disclosed.
As a means of improving user-friendliness of an electronic camera and so forth, an electronic camera and an image processing apparatus that specify a person as a main object as the result of a face recognition and perform various types of processes using information about the main object have been demanded.
With respect to a specific method of specifying a main object, a further improvement has been requested from a view point of user-friendliness of an electronic camera and so forth. For example, when objects of a plurality of persons as recognizing targets is shot by an electronic camera having a face recognizing function, there is a situation of which the number of main objects is restricted. In contrast, when objects of a plurality of persons is shot by the electronic camera having the face recognizing function are shot, there may be a situation of which a person that has not been recognized by the face recognizing function needs to be treated as a main object. Thus, it has been demanded to provide an electronic camera and so forth that can flexibly deal with the foregoing situations.